"Just because there are some districts that have two or three teams that are pretty good. If you have a third place team that is very good, they need to be in the state playoffs," said Viramontes, who also serves as the NMAA commission chairman.

Las Cruces High School head coach Mark Lopez said he doesn't have all the information yet, but has concerns about the new playoff format.

"In my mind, you would have a 1 versus 8/9 matchup and a 2 versus 7/10 matchup, which means 3 would play 6 and 4 would play 5," Lopez said. "If that is how I am thinking, if you get one of the top two seeds, you are one of the two teams that don't get to prepare for two weeks for your opponent. Because you don't know who you are playing. That's a little bit of an interesting nuance if that's how it plays out.

"I don't know if that's how it plays out, but I would be more concerned with how the format plays out than anything else."

The NMAA announced last summer that the 2018 state football championships will be played on Thanksgiving weekend as opposed to the first weekend of December like in years past. The NMAA also voted to keep football at seven classes. The new classification and district alignment should be announced in November after schools report their 40-day enrollment count next month.

All four Las Cruces Public Schools football programs should remain Class 6A for 2018 and 2019.

"We have been blessed to have three and sometimes all four in (the state playoffs)," Viramontes said. "(The new playoff format) still gives us that chance when you have six at-large bids. It will affect us."

The NMAA has made a number of changes this year, voting to reduce the number of teams for the state basketball and baseball tournaments from 16 to 12 starting with the 2018-19 block. The NMAA also voted earlier this year to go back to five classes for basketball, baseball, softball, volleyball and track and field.

On Wednesday, the NMAA voted to keep district tournaments, despite a proposal to get rid of them, for basketball and volleyball.

Mark Rudi can be reached at 575-541-5455, mrudi@lcsun-news.com or on Twitter @mrudi19.